The Other Side of Silence (41 page)

“Don’t try that,” snaps Katja.

He has dropped his monocle. His eyes, suddenly naked, are
burning on the gun in her hand as he reluctantly moves his hands
behind his back. Hanna has a length of rope wound about her waist
under her dress. It does not take very long to tie him up. Then she
gags him.

“Why don’t we just shoot him and have done with it?” asks Katja,
breathing heavily.

Hanna shakes her head and grimaces again.
We are not in a
hurry
. She picks up the gun she has left on the chair while she
was tying his arms together.
Take off his clothes
.

“What are you going to do now?” asks Katja, shocked. They have
never discussed this part of the plan before.

Take off his clothes. Use your knife if you have to
.

Dumbfounded, Katja does not dare disobey. Another two minutes
and Hauptmann Heinrich Bohlke is standing naked before them. His
feet are very white. His toenails are yellow. Strange what one
notices in a moment like this. He has a small pot-belly, which does
not go well with his delicate bony frame. She gazes openly at his
penis, a mangled, blackened little stub of a thing. It looks, she
thinks, like the remains of her tongue. Can this really be all? Is
this miserable little appendix all it has been about? All the
suffering, all the agony, once said, as despicable as he? There was
that night after they had taken the first fort, when she and Katja
lay talking and the girl – she was still a girl then – told her
about making love to her young soldier before she killed him.
The first part was for me, the second for you
. That was when
she first began to wonder: perhaps hate is not enough. If her whole
life had to remain trapped in hate it would mean that she could
never get beyond this moment of standing opposite this wretched
little person.

The years fall away. She is facing, once again, Herr Ludwig in
his study, the smooth black bishop in her hand. And with an
extraordinary sense of liberation she thinks: No. No, she will not
kill him. It is no longer necessary. It is not worth it. Killing
him cannot undo the world that has made him possible. She need not
stoop to that. It is too simple. And there has been blood enough.
All she needs is to make sure the world will take note. That
passionate message scrawled on a hot morning on the blank pages
from a Bible dropped in the dust. So that it cannot be shut away in
a drawer again as Frau Knesebeck once tried to do. She sighs
deeply. And puts on her clothes again with fastidious care.

When she has finished, she motions towards the door. Leaving a
thin trail of urine on the carpet, he starts moving. She opens the
door for him, then hesitates and looks back: Should she put on her
kappie again? No. Not this time. She will not make it easier for
others, or for herself. She follows him outside. The corridor is
empty. So is the staircase.

On the ground floor they encounter the first soldiers. There are
shouts, loud vacant orders, confused outcries. Hanna presses the
pistol into the man’s naked back. His backbone is studded like a
belt. She can count his pointed vertebrae. He is blubbering more
loudly now, but the sounds remain muffled in the cloth that gags
him.

Many soldiers follow in their wake, but at a safe distance,
overcome by the suddenness, the preposterousness, of this thing
that is happening before their eyes.

As they move from the large sandstone building into the
palm-lined street, downhill, towards the Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse,
more and more people gather to watch them. The news must be
spreading very rapidly. Kahapa would have believed it was done by
the wind. Soon there is a crowd.

Once or twice Hauptmann Heinrich Bohlke stumbles and falls on
his knees, but a quick stab with the barrel of the pistol sends him
scrambling wretchedly to his feet again. On one occasion, when
people threaten to come too close, Hanna fires a shot into the
ground right next to him. The bystanders tumble out of the way,
allowing her and her prisoner to pass unhindered among them. The
shot also causes the man to lose control of his sphincter. Watery
shit dribbles down the backs of his thin hairy legs. There are
titters in the crowd. They are beginning to enjoy it.

It cannot of course go on for very long. It is hard to say
whether it comes as a surprise when two pairs of arms in khaki
uniform suddenly clutch her from behind.

This time, she thinks, she will not die. This time it may be
worse.

Yet she does not offer any resistance; to those closest to her
she may seem even, vaguely, content. Perhaps, if one may use the
word, serene. At least, she thinks, there is nothing she regrets.
No pain, no agony, no fear, no darkness, no extremity or
outrage.

What she sees will not be the people in the crowd, but the grave
face of a small girl on a distant beach. Knowing that this is why
she is still here today, and will not kill. For the sake of that
tiny image. And what she hears will not be the shouts and cries and
curses or even the tumult of applause, but the very quiet sibilance
within the confines of a shell. And if she smiles, if what she
shows can be interpreted as a smile, it is because now, at last,
Hanna X has reached the other side.

∨
The Other Side of Silence
∧

Nama words are indicated with (N), Afrikaans words
with (A)

EOF